Are there legitimate uses for JavaScript's “with” statement?

Question

Alan Storm\'s comments in response to my answer regarding the with statement got me thinking. I\'ve seldom found a reason to use this particular language feature, and had ne

Answer 1

I created a "merge" function which eliminates some of this ambiguity with the with statement:

if (typeof Object.merge !== 'function') {
    Object.merge = function (o1, o2) { // Function to merge all of the properties from one object into another
        for(var i in o2) { o1[i] = o2[i]; }
        return o1;
    };
}

I can use it similarly to with, but I can know it won't affect any scope which I don't intend for it to affect.

Usage:

var eDiv = document.createElement("div");
var eHeader = Object.merge(eDiv.cloneNode(false), {className: "header", onclick: function(){ alert("Click!"); }});
function NewObj() {
    Object.merge(this, {size: 4096, initDate: new Date()});
}